The Jewish Theological Seminary will on Tuesday honor three rabbinical graduates from 50 years ago who made aliya and went on to excel in their fields of expertise.

Rabbi David Geffen, along with Professors Lee Israel Levine and Aaron Demsky will receive the Louis Finkelstein Award at the JTS-Schocken Institute for Jewish Research in Jerusalem.

Dr Beverly Gribetz, another JTS alumnus, will receive the Solomon Schechter Award for Jewish Education in recognition of her contributions to The State of Israel on Tuesday night as well.

Geffen, Levine and Demsky, were ordained by the JTS rabbinical school in New York in 1965.

Congratulations to all four, but the one of special interest to PaleoJudaica is Lee Levine:

Levine’s work focused on Jewish history and archaeology. He earned a PhD from Columbia University in New York, and was invited in the 1970s to teach at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem by the late archaeologist, politician and IDF Chief of Staff, Yigal Yadin.

Levine taught at the Institute for Archaeology at The Hebrew University and became a professor in 1985.

He wrote 13 books, edited another 12 works, and published about 200 academic papers.

He also founded the Tali network of schools and helped establish the Schechter Institute where he served as its first president.